‘Kings of the world’: The last of the horseback shrimp fishers

Oostduinkerke, Belgium – A few hours after dawn one late July morning, the sound of Gregory Debruyne’s horse Kelly trotting through the verdant lanes of Oostduinkerke echoes through the quaint coastal village in west Belgium.

Pulling a cart filled with fishing gear and equipment to sift shrimps, Kelly – a brown Belgian draught horse – and Debruyne are heading towards the sandy shores of the North Sea to go shrimp fishing.

Debruyne is a Belgian horseback shrimp fisherman in Oostduinkerke – the last place in the world where this centuries-old practice of catching shrimp using horses rather than boats continues.

“I learned horseback shrimp fishing from my father when I was 11 years old,” Debruyne, now 27, tells Al Jazeera, as he gets Kelly ready to fish for the day in the village centre, close to the sea.

Dozens of tourists are crowding around them and eagerly watching as Debruyne covers Kelly with a warm blanket and mounts two brown baskets on either side of her back. He also attaches a chained net to her tail.

“Using her hindquarters, Kelly will wade through the shallow waves of the North Sea, until the seawater reaches her chest, pulling the net, which has a chain at the bottom. This pull generates a vibration that disturbs the shrimp in the shallow waters, instigating them to jump into the expanded net,” Debryune explains.

Four other fishermen and their horses have joined Kelly and Debruyne in the village. All the horseback shrimp fishermen don bright yellow anoraks – thick waterproof jackets – and black gum boots and head off towards the North Sea on their horses.

“I hope to return after about an hour, with a worthy catch,” Debruyne shouts back as the spectators watch him and Kelly heading into the sea.

Horseback shrimp fishing – which is on the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” list maintained by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – began in northern Belgium at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, when the region was under the control of Christian monks.

While it was also practised in the Netherlands, France and parts of southern England, just 12 families in Belgium still pursue the tradition.

In 1502, there was an abbey at Koksijde (in present-day Belgium) and the monks wanted shrimps and fish to eat, something the local religious community was only too happy to oblige. “The local farmers, who owned horses, decided to go to the sea and catch shrimp and fish and give it to the monks of the abbey. This kicked off the practice of horseback shrimp fishing,” Eddy D’Hulster, who worked as a horseback shrimp fisherman for 56 years, tells Al Jazeera.

These days, horseback fishermen like Debruyne also work on commercial vessels to earn more money. On vessels, the horseback shrimp fishers also catch other fish and not just shrimp.

D’Hustler himself has also worked as a fisherman on vessels, but says he much prefers catching shrimp on horseback since he believes the brown shrimp is tastier when it comes from the shallow waters of the North Sea.

‘Live for the horse and the sea’

Sporting a navy blue cap imprinted with a symbol of a horseback shrimp fisher, 81-year-old D’Hulster is watching the bright yellow anoraks of Debruyne and the other fishermen with their horses out at sea and reminiscing about his first time fishing in such a manner.

“I started fishing for shrimp on horseback thanks to a love story,” he chuckles.

“I met this beautiful girl in the village and learned that her father was a horseback shrimp fisherman. I began learning the tradition from him when I was around 18 years old, seeking to impress his daughter. We were soon married which was great,” he says, blushing.

“But this was also the onset of a bigger love story in my life which always made me feel like the king of the world – horseback shrimp fishing!” he exclaims.

Shrimp caught by the horseback shrimp fishermen in the North Sea are greyish-brown in colour and called brown shrimp. They are found in the shallow waters of the sea and Belgians consider them to be the tastiest shrimp in the world due to their sweet and salty flavour.

“When I started fishing, it was the beginning of spring and the North Sea back then was brimming with brown shrimp,” D’Hulster says. “Treading into the shallow waves of the sea, we could easily catch about 20-30kg [44-66lbs] of shrimp and make a living through this tradition, earning about 30 Belgian francs [about 0.75 euros] for a kilo.”

Today the price is 10 euros ($11.11) for a kilo of shrimp, he says, and “it is the only kind of shrimp I love eating”.

While the catch and the money they could earn was an incentive that drew young men and women in Oostduinkerke to horseback shrimp fishing, D’Hulster says that for many of them, it is also a passion for horses and the “mighty blue” North Sea, which keeps the ancient tradition alive here.

“Shrimps are what we catch, but as a horseback fisherman, you must live for the horse and love the sea. When I started fishing, the thing I loved the best was my horse, Mina. She was about 10 years old and I bought her from my father-in-law. We learned shrimp fishing together,” he says.

Mina died when she was 20 years old, after which it took D’Hulster six months to train another horse to fish.

“Mina taught me to love the open sea. I do miss her, but my family now owns around 10 to 20 horses which are trained to fish in the sea,” D’Hulster says.

Like Kelly, Mina was a Belgian draught horse – a breed trained for agricultural work. The horseback fishers buy horses in big Belgian cities like Brussels and choose the “calmest” ones to accompany them shrimp fishing. Calmness makes it easier to train the horse to tread through the waves of the sea and not to be alarmed by sea creatures in the shallow waters by the shore.

While any horse can be trained to shrimp fish, the Belgian draught horse which is also known as the “Brabant” horse (named after the province in Belgium) enjoys the briny waters of the North Sea and, being bigger, stronger and faster than other breeds, can better help the fishers to carry out their trade efficiently, according to D’Hulster.

Climate change: A front-row view

After a little more than 45 minutes at sea, Debruyne and the other horseback shrimp fishermen gradually begin returning to the shore.

As soon as Kelly’s wet hooves touch the sandy beach of Oostduinkerke, she grunts, apparently declaring her arrival to all who are watching. Debruyne alights from her back and rushes to separate the net from Kelly. A group of seagulls is hovering over it, keen to see if they might get lucky and make off with some shrimp.

Debruyne shakes the net, which looks full of shrimp. But once emptied out, the catch is revealed to be mostly moss, seaweed and barely a kilo of brown shrimp.

“Today’s catch is not worth it,” Debruyne says before emptying it out to the sea, including the small amount of shrimp that is not worth the effort of cleaning and cooking. “We had a ball of a time fishing, but I’ll return over the weekend to fish for shrimp again,” he says and heads off to enjoy the sea waves with Kelly and tourists who want to pose for pictures with her.

Debruyne and Kelly generally go fishing three times a week during the summer months. In October, fishing season, they venture into the sea almost every day. They generally catch around 5-6kg [11-13lbs] of shrimp, which is cooked and sold to friends and family.

“This shrimp lasts only for about two days and needs to be consumed immediately,” Debruyne says. “Since the catch is also not many kilos, we do not sell it in the market. Years ago, you could catch 30kg [66lb] and earn a living from it. Today it is purely for tourism,” Debruyne said.

But their proximity to the sea has given them a front-row view of how climate change can impact the North Sea’s ecosystem, and D’Hulster worries about what this could mean for the future of shrimp fishing.

“The shrimp populations are decreasing. If we start catching less than 3kg [7lbs] of shrimp, I’m not sure how we can fish,” he says. “Perhaps we will become horseback fishers catching other species of fish.”

None of the horseback shrimp fishers can make a proper living from the tradition these days. They work on commercial ships, in the construction business or in the agriculture sector on the other days of the week.

“I bought Kelly for about 3,000 euros [$3,330] in Brussels, which is a lot of money. I also need money to groom her and take care of her,” says Debruyne. “Through horseback shrimp fishing, I can earn only around 100 euros [$111] in a day. But I love my horse and this tradition of shrimp fishing. So, I don’t mind also working other jobs to fund my passion for this tradition.”

D’Hulster says the local municipality has also been trying to help the fishermen continue the tradition by paying them a small fee to pursue it as a tourist activity.

‘In 3,000 years, we will still be fishing here’

Climate change is contributing to the decline in shrimp numbers here, experts say.

Belgium has been experiencing heatwaves for the past few years and the North Sea’s surface temperature has increased by around 0.3 degrees Celsius (0.54 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade since 1991, according to the European Environment Agency.

Hans Polet, a fisheries scientist and science director at the Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Research (ILVO) at Oostende, in Belgium, explains that the consequences of climate change, weather fluctuations and changes in the population of the shrimp’s natural predators in the North Sea have impacted overall shrimp populations.

“The brown shrimp in the North Sea is a short-living species. It usually lives for two years, which means that there are a lot of fluctuations in the biomass because they depend quite strongly not only on the climate, but also on the yearly weather. For example, cold and harsh weather will influence their breeding success and then the next year there will be very few shrimps,” Polet says.

He notes that last year was a particularly poor year for shrimps in the North Sea, partly because the main predator of shrimp, which is codfish, has begun moving north from more southerly waters due to climate change, impacting overall shrimp populations.

Polet adds that the technique of shrimp fishing can also impact the species.

“If you only look at the environmental impact, I think horseback shrimp fishing isn’t very harmful because it involves the use of towed fishing gear and horses trampling in the sand in shallow waters, where natural disturbances of the sea, like waves, are quite strong. So the ecosystem that lives there is used to strong disturbances and fishing does not make much of a difference,” Polet says.

“Now, the deeper you go in the sea, the impact of waves decreases and animals are used to quieter conditions. So industrial fishing done in this part of the sea tends to have a negative impact on the environment.”

Polet says techniques such as electric fishing are also sustainable options. This technique involves using a very small electric pulse of around five hertz in fishing gear, which makes the shrimp jump so they can be caught without the gear touching or damaging the sea floor.

While climate change is an issue that the horseback fishers are aware of, many are optimistic that their fishing tradition will continue since it has generated a strong sense of identity in their community.

Those who pursue the tradition do it because they love horses and they love fishing, says D’Hulster. “It’s not all about money. For many, it is also the important method of carrying forward a family tradition. So even women and children in the family pursue the tradition.”

“When you are on a horse’s back and head out to fish in the North Sea early in the morning by yourself, all you see in front of you is the mighty blue sea. It is an amazing feeling,” he says with a glimmer in his eyes.

“So in 3,000 years, even if there are no shrimp, you will still see the fishers of Oostduinkerke on horseback, fishing, because this is our tradition and will always make us feel like the kings or queens of the world.”